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Finding Balance After Jet Lag

March 22, 2013 •

Woman in Yoga Tree Pose

Find­ing bal­ance in the yoga tree pose

Yoga is teach­ing me how long it really takes to recover from jet lag, once past the super­fi­cial effects of inter­rupted sleep and con­cen­tra­tion issues. The first few days are always killers, espe­cially when try­ing to over­come time zone dif­fer­ences of 8 hours or more.

I used to think I could get back to nor­mal within a week, after a long trip to Europe (8–9 time zones’ dif­fer­ence). Thanks to mind-body insights from a reg­u­lar yoga prac­tice, I now real­ize it can take at least 2 weeks to fully recover. This insight is based on bal­anc­ing, or lack thereof, as a mea­sure of recov­ery.

On most days stand­ing poses, like “air­plane pose” or the tree pose shown here, are not espe­cially chal­leng­ing for me. I’m one of those lucky peo­ple with good bal­ance and enough core strength to hold most bal­ance poses with integrity — and even the occa­sional hint of grace.

That said, what my most recent travel expe­ri­ence sug­gests is that it takes 2–3 weeks to fully recover from jet lag — to get back to the point where I can hold a bal­ance pose with­out waver­ing or shak­ing (or falling down).

After sev­eral days back, I find myself falling out of a nor­mally sim­ple bal­ance pose. It has taken 2 weeks to recap­ture the abil­ity to ground myself on the 4 cor­ners of each foot, to be mind­ful of each cor­ner and how it grips the mat (or not).

Some­how jet lag breaks the mind-body link­age, the energy flow between feet and brain, so my bal­ance wavers notice­ably as a result. This waver­ing serves as a sig­nal that all is not quite well. It’s a sig­nal to me and an atten­tive teacher.

Thank­fully, I’m now past the worst of the jet lag, have recov­ered my bal­ance — and have received a gra­cious com­ment from my teacher on how nice it is to see my regained sense of bal­ance.

Jet lag, be gone!

 

About This Blog

Reflec­tions on life, travel, books, and yoga. Think­ing out loud about the pur­suit of mind­ful­ness and well-being.

Learn­ing how to recover from the loss of a beloved spouse, and then to find a trans­for­ma­tive path for­ward.

About Me

Semi-retired marketing exec, transitioning from a career in high tech. Now "managed" by two Tonkinese cats. Missing travel and friends on the West Coast. Avid reader and foodie. Staying active with long walks, biking, kayaking and yoga.

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